The Challenge CurriculumLearning Outcomes

General Education Student Learning Outcomes

In addition to the area-specific Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) below, every General Education course must also address each of the following four SLOs:

1. Students will be able to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges from multiple disciplines, using qualitative and quantitative methods;
2. Students will be able to use ethical, religious, or philosophical frameworks to evaluate their own and others’ responses to enduring and contemporary challenges
3. Students will be able to examine issues of cultural difference both locally and globally;
4. Students will be able to communicate effectively in written, spoken, and creative expression with a variety of audiences.

Arts

Arts students will:
1. Identify the tools or methods used in an artistic discipline to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.

Challenge Seminars

Challenge Seminar students will:
1. Collaboratively analyze and respond to a significant enduring question or contemporary challenge, incorporating perspectives from multiple disciplines.
2. Examine how issues of cultural difference, both globally and locally, intersect with this challenge.
3. Use multiple types of communication (e.g., multiple genres; visual and written communication; oral and written communication etc.) to craft arguments that make and support claims successfully for multiple audiences and contexts.
4. Reflect on how the college’s mission and their education as a whole has influenced their personal values, plans for life after college, and the role they see for themselves in the world.

First-Term Seminar Program (FTS)

FTS students will:
1. Consider purpose, audience, and context when writing.
2. Make and support claims effectively in writing.
3. Demonstrate familiarity with the College curriculum and campus resources related to navigating College successfully.

Global Affairs and Cultures

Global Affairs and Cultures students will:
1. Describe how a topic of global reach affects human populations.
2. Compare multiple perspectives on the topic being studied.
3. Evaluate the arguments that different forms of information support.

U.S. Identities and Difference

U.S. Identities and Difference students will:
1. Describe the experiences of one or more non-majority ethnic or racial groups in the U.S. with attention to how intersectionality with at least one other category of difference has shaped that experience.
2. Analyze the vital connections among identity, privilege, and power in the United States at the personal and institutional levels.
3. Evaluate the arguments that different forms of information support.

Human Behavior and Social Institutions

Human Behavior and Social Institutions students will:
1. Identify the tools or methods used in a social science discipline to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.
Religious Studies and Philosophy Student Learning Outcomes: Religious Studies and Philosophy students will:
1. Identify the tools or methods used in religion, philosophy, or ethics to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.

Humanities

Humanities students will:
1. Identify the tools or methods used in a humanities discipline to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.

Natural Science

Natural Science students will:
1. Identify the tools or methods used in a natural science discipline to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.

Quantitative Reasoning (QUANT)

QUANT students will:
1. Critique quantitative or logical assertions using mathematical, logical, statistical, and/or algorithmic reasoning.
2. Use mathematical, logical, statistical, and/or algorithmic analysis to make decisions and/or solve problems, including through examination of assumptions and utilization of proper methods.
3. Compare how different sources use mathematical, logical, statistical, and/or algorithmic reasoning.

Religious Studies and Philosophy

Outcomes
Theological Studies students will: 
1. Identify the tools or methods used in religion, philosophy, or ethics to analyze enduring and contemporary questions or challenges.
2. Describe appropriate tactics and strategies to comprehend or decode texts or artifacts in the dominant genre of the discipline.

Writing and Information Literacy (WRITL)

WRITL students will: 
1. Encounter and distinguish various forms of communication (e.g., journal article, podcast, documentary, etc.), analyze the arguments those texts construct, and engage the texts through informal and formal writing.
2. Use multiple types of communication (e.g., multiple genres; visual and written communication; oral and written communication etc.) to craft arguments that make and support claims successfully for multiple audiences and contexts.
3. Draft, revise, and edit work with feedback from others.

Writing in the Disciplines (WRITD)

WRITD students will:
1. Create texts that meet the needs of specific purposes, audiences, and contexts within the discipline and exemplify the structures, genres, and conventions of communication within the discipline.
2. Critically evaluate information in order to write arguments that communicate effectively with specific audiences.
3. Draft, revise, and edit work with feedback from others.

Signature Experience (SigX)

Students will articulate how justice-related values (e.g., values related to the questions of how others should be treated, what people owe to each other, and what systems would make those things possible) shape their perspective, approach to, and experience in outward facing contexts (such as the workplace and local and global communities).

Note: The provisions of the Gustavus academic bulletin are not an irrevocable contract between the student and the College. The College reserves the right to change any provision or requirement at any time during the student's term of residence.